


No Regrets

by austere_alacrity



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Frank figures out Matt's identity, Gen, could be read as pre-slash, episode rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 07:37:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8881660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/austere_alacrity/pseuds/austere_alacrity
Summary: A quick rewrite of the events of season 2 episode 6, "Regrets Only".





	

The second that public defender began gloating about Frank Castle’s impending execution, Matt Murdock knew with absolute certainty that he wasn’t going to let Castle die. There was no question, no hesitation- he just couldn’t. For one thing, the irony of the situation was not lost on him: after all his talk of justice and not playing God, Matt had essentially handed Frank over to die. The enormous hypocrisy of it was just too much for Matt’s sense of self-righteousness to bear. But even more than that… Matt may not have known Frank well, and what he knew, he might not have even liked, but Matt knew enough about Frank Castle to know that he was not a man who deserved to die, so he wasn’t going to let him, and it was as simple as that.  
Convincing Foggy of that fact, however, was a little less cut and dry. Matt could see why Foggy was so reluctant- Frank had shot him in the head, chained him to a building, and tried to get Matt to shoot a helpless (albeit guilty) man. But Foggy didn’t know the things about Frank that Matt did, hadn’t heard his voice in that graveyard when the man had been describing the corpse of his little girl. While Foggy couldn’t see past Frank’s criminal record, Matt had seen all too clearly the broken man underneath- a person who needed help, and God knows Matt has never been one to walk away from someone who needed his help.  
So, in the end, Matt had won like he usually did. After that, it had been a relatively simple matter of navigating the many layers of hospital security and press, convincing Brett that they wanted- no, needed- this case, and getting searched and briefed one last time before being herded into the hospital room of a mass murderer. Before Matt knew it, they were in there, the door was locked behind him- and there he was.  
It was difficult to imagine Frank being in a worse condition than he had been in when Matt had last seen him, but if anything, Castle looked worse now. Lying in the bed with his hands cuffed to the sides and semi conscious, his face was still covered in bruises and blood, so that his face was little more than a mask of gore.  
As if some invisible force drew him near, Matt took a step forward. Then another. As if in a daze, Matt slowly walked towards this sad sack of broken bones, remembering to stop only when Foggy warned him softly, “Matt, the tape.”  
Keeping his voice even, Matt said softly, “Frank Castle?” Those eyes- the eyes of a predator- fluttered open, taking a second to focus on him. Satisfied he had his attention, Matt continued, “My name is Mathew Murdock. These are my associates, Franklin Nelson and Karen Page.”  
Understanding that Matt couldn’t see dawned in Frank’s eyes as he growled in response, “Yeah. I know who you are. You protect shit bags.” Despite himself, Matt let out the smallest breath of a laugh. Yes, here was the Frank he knew- unequivocal in his beliefs and unafraid to show it, no matter how tactlessly.  
Without further banter, Matt proceeded to tell Frank why they were there and why Frank needed them, Karen and Foggy chiming in every now and then. Finally, Matt concluded, “We’re talking about your life, Mr. Castle. We can help you keep what’s left of it.”  
At that, Frank let out a low chuckle. “Kinda like what you did for Grotto, huh?”  
In a flash, Matt was up on that rooftop again, that gun duct taped to his hand as Frank ordered him to make the impossible choice: kill Frank or let Grotto die. In the end, Matt had made his own choice… but he hadn’t been fast enough. Whether or not Grotto actually would’ve managed to turn his life around didn’t matter anymore, because Frank had deprived him of that chance… because Frank had slaughtered him where he had knelt, begging for mercy. As rage filled him, righteous rage at all the lives this man had taken remorselessly, Matt went absolutely still as a dangerous calm took over.  
Matt felt Karen tense beside him, but before she had the chance to say whatever it was she was going to say, Matt lunged forward, ignoring Foggy’s shouts of warning, and braced himself on the footboard of the bed, looming over it, and responded softly, “Yes, like what we tried to do for Grotto. Because it’s like I said, Frank- everyone deserves a second chance. There is goodness in people, even you.” Matt dropped his voice to barely a whisper, so that even Foggy and Karen couldn’t hear his next words. “And I meant it when I said you should’ve killed me, because I’m never going to stop coming for you.”  
Frank’s eyes went wide as the realization hit him- why that soft voice had sounded so damn familiar- and after a moment, he let out another chuckle, a real one this time. “Geez, Red,” he drawled, making no effort to keep his voice down, “Looks like I wasn’t too far off when I thought you were a shrink.”  
“What the hell is he talking about, Matt?” Karen asked, trying- and failing- to mask her confusion as she glared at Castle, who’s grin widened.  
“What, don’t tell me that they don’t know?” Frank laughed. “Oh, Red, this is just too good.”  
Foggy, who clearly had picked up on what had just happened, tried to step in. “Mr. Castle, the point is-“  
“Nuh-uh,” Frank interrupted him, that amused grin still on his bruised face, “from now on I’m only speaking with Mr. Murdock. The rest of you can leave.”  
“No way,” Foggy and Karen said simultaneously, both taking a few steps closer to Matt.  
“Foggy, Karen, please,” Matt said, turning to face them, despite the fact that he couldn’t look them in the eye. “I’ll be fine.”  
“Are you sure, Matt?” Karen asked softly, taking his hand reassuringly.  
This time, it was Castle who answered. “Don’t worry, mam, your boyfriend is more than capable of taking care of himself. Besides, I don’t bite, do I, Red?”  
Matt nodded once to Karen, who squeezed his hand and followed Foggy from the room, who turned and said, “We’ll be right outside if you need anything.” With one final shut of the door, the two vigilantes were finally alone, both more vulnerable than they were entirely comfortable with.  
After a brief moment of silence, in which both men regarded each other carefully, Frank finally let out another low laugh. “Really, Red? A lawyer? I mean, shit, I knew you were in love with the law, but I didn’t know you were actually married to it.”  
Without meaning to, Matt lets a slow smile spread across his face. He knows he shouldn’t, but there’s something innately enjoyable about bantering with the Punisher; perhaps it’s the lawyer in him. “Ah, well, I wanted a gig as a psychotic vigilante killing machine, but unfortunately the only job opening had been filled.”  
Matt received only another low chuckle in response, but he could feel Castle staring at him, studying his face. In hindsight, letting Castle know about Matt’s secret identity may have been a huge mistake, but he hadn’t exactly been thinking reasonably when Frank had brought up Grotto. He had just been so sick of Frank’s pessimistic views on human nature, the insinuation that he cared more about money than the lives of his clients, the trivialization of Grotto’s death… he had just sort of snapped, and now he would have to deal with the consequences.  
“So, Mathew Murdock,” Castle interrupted Matt’s train of thought, “one question: why the sunglasses in the dark hospital room?”  
With a start, Matt’s hand flew to his face, where he had forgotten he was still wearing his glasses. Matt realized suddenly that, whatever Castle had heard about the lawyer Mathew Murdock, he obviously hadn’t heard that he was blind. Matt suddenly had no idea how to tell the vigilante sitting on the bed before him that the man he had shot in the head, the man who had beaten him unconscious, was blind. Taking his silence as permission to continue, Frank went on, “I mean, is this some sort of lame-ass attempt to hide your identity from me? Because I know your name now, man. It don’t matter that I can’t see your eyes, except that I like meeting a man’s eye when I’m talking to him, so why don’t you quit hiding behind those things so that we can talk?”  
Matt hesitated, and then, with a finality that said he had nothing left to lose from this, he took his glasses from his face, placed them in his pocket, and waited for the inevitable, still not saying anything. Slowly, slowly, Matt heard Castle’s heart rate start to rise as the full reality of Matt’s identity hit him like a ton of bricks. Matt heard Frank whisper under his breath a garbled “Shit…” as he examined Matt’s dead, unseeing eyes.  
“You… You’re blind, Red?” Frank managed to get out, sounding strangled. “How… How?”  
“An accident, when I was a kid,” Matt said briskly, trying to make it clear that he neither wanted nor needed the other man’s sympathy. “I found out pretty quick that if you manage to quit feeling sorry for yourself and move on, you can learn to live with almost anything. This was no exception.”  
“But… how?” Frank continued to stare in wonder, and Matt was beginning to feel a bit self conscious beneath the older man’s scrutiny. “I mean, how do you fight? Hell, how do you even walk?”  
“There are other ways to see,” Matt said simply. He could feel the man still gaping at him, and figured it was time to move the conversation along; Karen and Foggy might start to get worried. “But I’m not here to whine about my… disability. I’m here to talk about you.”  
“Wait, so you actually want to represent me?” The disbelief was clear in Frank’s voice. “After all I’ve done to you?”  
“They want to kill you, Frank,” Matt continued evenly. “I can’t allow that to happen.”  
Matt could almost hear the wheels turning in Frank’s brain, wondering how it was possible that this man- a man he had attempted to kill on multiple occasions- could possibly want to risk everything to help him. “Why? I get that you don’t want to kill anyone- it’s dumb and naïve and ineffective, but I get it. But letting me die wouldn’t be the same as killing me. So, why?”  
Matt was starting to get annoyed. Because if he were being honest, he didn’t have a clear answer; he didn’t know why he couldn’t just let this go, just take a step back and let the courts do their job. It would certainly be easier to just let Frank die; easier, and cleaner, and maybe even deserved. Maybe because he knew, in his gut, that this wasn’t real justice; it was a perversion and a mockery of everything Matt worked for, manipulating the justice system for someone’s personal gain. Or maybe it was because, despite himself, there was some small part of Matt that identified with some small part of Frank; maybe, just maybe, Matt had taken a liking to Frank, and his conviction, and his shattered, broken soul, despite his obviously flawed methods.  
But Matt couldn’t- wouldn’t- explain any of that to Frank, so instead he pulled one straight from the Catechism of the Catholic Church and said “Because I happen to believe in the sanctity of all human life; because I don’t think men have a right to play God, whether it be you or some corrupt District Attorney. And because I believe in second chances. I believe that what you’re doing, however wrong it is, you’re doing because you want to help. You want to make sure that what happened to your family never has to happen to another kid, another mother, ever again. And that’s what I want, too.” Matt could tell, somehow, that Frank believed him. He added with a wry grin, “Besides; what kind of person would I be if I lectured you on killing and then handed you over to the people who most wanted you dead?”  
Matt sensed Frank’s smile. “You know Red, you’re even crazier than I am.”  
“So I can have your case?”  
“Sure, knock yourself out; it’s just as much your funeral as it is mine.”  
Matt felt a cautious smile spread across his face. “In that case, Mr. Castle, allow me to retrieve my associates so that we can begin putting together a case strategy. Just-“ Matt’s voice became serious- “Karen can’t know, alright? About me. Nor can anyone else, besides Foggy.” After a couple of seconds of silence, Matt’s voice became steel. “Promise me.”  
“Alright, alright, Red, you have my word,” Frank said, his voice uncharacteristically devoid of sarcasm… that is, until he added, “I would cross my heart and all that, but…” Frank gave the chains a playful rattle, prompting a small laugh from Matt that surprised them both. Frank decided that he liked that laugh.  
Putting his glasses back on, Matt turned and marched toward the door, sticking his head out and calling down the hallway, “Mr. Nelson, Ms. Page… it appears we have a case.” Frank sensed more than saw the devilish grin that accompanied Matt’s words, and he allowed himself to consider the possibility that, for the first time in a long time, this might actually work out okay.

**Author's Note:**

> And so ends my first fic ever (but hopefully not the last :)


End file.
